All My Little Words

I don’t know how I broke this entry, but if I can fix it, I will later.

I just had this moment that was the moment in Clerks where one of the title screens pops up, and in this case a bit of disconcerting music plays. The word is: Malaise.
I am actually feeling better, but I have been battling … something since I got that stupid cold a couple of weeks ago. The last few days I have been suffering serious lethargy and irrational irritability. At first, I thought it was that it was still cold and dark, and it was beginning to bug even ME, someone who can barely stand the light of day, even in deepest, darkest winter. Then it got HOT, and I wasn’t surprised at all that I was exhausted or aggravated. Heat does that to me. I actually had a pretty good day Sunday, despite lack of sleep, but by Monday I was totally out of sorts again. And again on Tuesday, although maybe not so much. But I actually took a NAP on Tuesday, something which I never, ever do. Alex made me. And last night I was asleep on the couch at something like 9:30. WTF? And slept until 8 this morning. Fortunately, I am finally feeling a little better.
Now, I am just feeling horrible for having snapped at Alex the last couple of days.
Alex, of all people – the man who said “Stop doing chores and take a nap” on Tuesday, and picked me up and put me in bed.
The man who woke me up last night, and reminded me that I really needed to go take my contacts out.
The man who insists that I need another day off from work, and to eventually, quit working altogether.
In short, the only man who has ever taken care of me. Maybe the only person who has ever taken of me, including my mother (I was taught to take care of myself. I have no idea what it is like to be taken care of.)
And I had the nerve to snap at him, both Monday and Tuesday, over stupid things. I don’t even remember what.

Yesterday, I speculated that perhaps I am depressed because of allergies, as those kicked in as a follow up to that lovely spring cold. I think it has something to do with the fact that i really never do get things done that I want/need to. It could also be that I feel like I’m in a weird holding pattern right now with the whole idea that we might buy a house. I don’t know if or when that would happen, so I feel kind of…out of sorts, without a plan. We’re having a bit of a meeting about it tonight though, so hopefully that will make me feel better.

It is also almost the end of school, so I can hopefully get back to, what is for me, a more normal sleep schedule. By which I mean, I don’t have to get up and take Sage to school anymore. I guess one of my big worries about buying a house is that we won’t end up in one near his school or to which he can take the school bus, and I will be right back to driving him and back on the unnatural schedule.

Oh, and there is also the work schedule issue still, not so much the number of days worked, but the hours. I still hate working until 6. I don’t mind the number of hours so much, but I always kind of just want the work day to be over. By, you know, around 3. I might as well, right?

So I guess my malaise is based around all the uncertainty, and waiting to see what happens, the desire to make changes tempered with the need to not rush into anything. Hasn’t it always been this way? Will it ever really change?

I have been spectacularly unmotivated thus far today, which is a point of terrible sadness for me, because I did have a great plan for today in which I would get quite a bit done, including some stuff that has been needing to be done for a while. I formulated this plan mostly over the weekend, when I realized that there wasn’t much maintenance housecleaning to be done. Last night, I fully intended to get some laundry folded and some stuff together for Sage’s trip to camp on Wednesday. But then we had people, and nothing got done for dinner before I got home, and one drink led to another which led to me getting nothing done that I was supposed to, followed by me falling asleep on the couch because I have been extra tired from the heat, and just trying to DO STUFF.

I’m making a bit of a comeback for today, but the fact that apparently we have people coming over AGAIN is kind of stifling me. It should give me a kick in the ass, but it doesn’t because I feel like I’m going to end up doing everything again (which irritates me and makes me want to do NOTHING) and I am overwhelmed by the idea of WHAT DO I DO FIRST?!? I have too many things to do, and because a mess was made last night, and nothing that was supposed to get done did, I now have maintenance housework that I wasn’t supposed to have. I have errands. And I certainly am not going to have time to do everything, which means that those things I was gonna do that actually have needed to get done for a long time? Not gonna happen. Which is depressing. And de-motivating.

While it felt like about 70 around here yesterday, I learned today that it was 85 everywhere else in the city. That’s dandy with me, it could be 85 every day, but if a cool breeze made it feel like 70 where ever I am, I’d be happy.

This was not the case today. The lovely morning turned into an oppressively, brutally hot day. It may have been over 90. I actually felt physically ill, which is not unusual for me to feel when it is that hot. Some clouds have blown in and it’s actually not bad now. I think it will be nice tonight while I am out, even.

Totally off that subject, for almost a year and a half now, my hair has been dark brown, rather than its traditional jet black. Many times in my life I have decided to go from black to another color, always with some excitement. None of them lasted as long as this dark brown has, in most cases, it worked out for a few months, and then I decided black was better and colored it back. The dark brown has been fine, and I liked it well enough all along, but I’ve been thinking for a while now that I should just go back to black, which is what I’m doing right now. And really looking forward to it, for maybe the first time since….well, the first time I did it. I guess I am just meant to be a brunette till the end.

I don’t like warm, sunny weather, but after the longest winter ever here, and a totally nonexistent spring today is amazing. It was overcast for a period of time yesterday, but still pleasantly warm, and unsurprisingly, people were complaining. I smiled, and realized that it was helping to keep the temperature from climbing all the way to the forecast 80 or so degrees. The evening was so perfect, the clouds had burned off but a strong breeze kept things cool still. I went to shut the back door before getting into bed, and at 1am, the air coming in was exactly the same as the air in the house – I’m guessing around 68 degrees. Of course, we slept with all the windows open, and it was perfect when I got up (with ease for the first time in months). I’ve been sitting outside on the back patio, reading the news on the interwebs and writing this while having my morning coffee. Less than 5 minutes after I noticed what may later be an oppressive heat edging its way into the day, a perfect breeze sprang up to tame that heat back down. Hopefully it will not reach the predicted high of 80-something today, and will stick to the 70’s, and hold steady tonight for going out. Tomorrow is supposed to be perfect, right around 70 and partly cloudy, the beginning of another week of rain.

I don’t know why I’m sitting here talking about the weather, except that it makes everything feel so perfect for once.
Yesterday, while I was checking my bookmarked house, I noticed that a number of them are starting to move. At least one sold, and a  few others are pending or subject to inspection. I did a new search and came up with a few more new ones, including one that really might be perfect. Not as pretty as the one that turned out to be in a less than perfect spot, but a bit bigger, with a rec room finished basement complete with fireplace down there, and another upstairs. New appliances, stainless stove and french door fridge, big lot, perfect location.

It’s only tiny flaw is that it is Cape Cod, my least favorite style of house, but because it is so plain, it is like a blank pallet, waiting to be prettied up. Oh, it’s got a garage too, and maybe alley access? Offstreet parking for up to 3 more cars, anyway.
So after all my cynicism and skepticism, I’m really looking forward to trying to buy a house, finally.

Hopefully, today won’t be too stressful at work. Maybe because it is so warm and sunny, it will just be steady because people want to go have fun. I don’t want to be too burnt out before heading out tonight.

I can get on this one while the other one is successfully uploading an ENTIRE FOLDER full of photos to my photo gallery to say:

IT WORKS!!!!

I am so fucking happy I made it go. Amazing.
(Yes, I am aware that I technically could have blogged this from the other computer while it is uploading, but i honestly like to leave it alone while it is handling that task. It is cumbersome, and I don’t want it interrupted.)

I have a number of blog things which serve different purposes, and I don’t talk about any of them on any of the others.
One is largely unused these days, although it is often on the verge of making a comeback. The other came before this one, and is for my event photos – bands, parties, etc. I started this one because I wanted to be able to write about things that I had experienced, but because many of those things happened while I was taking photos, and involve people I was taking photos of, I kind of wanted a separate place to do that. The unused blog was not the place to do it – it is unused these days because I have had it a long, long time, and I suspected that people I used to know might still look at it, and for some reason that thought made me a little uneasy. I have no idea why I never mention the photo blog on here – I guess initially it was because this blog was private, and now this blog is more of a “day in the life” kind of thing, and due to technical issues that blog has dropped out of my daily life.

Sometime last summer, my camera developed a problem that rendered it unusable until repaired. I put off taking it in, because if there is one thing I have a phobia of, it is getting things fixed. I have a terror of taking something in, only to find out that the cost of the service will be astronomical. Eventually, Alex got the camera fixed for me, as a Christmas gift. By that time, I was wholly unaccustomed to taking it out with me, and it took me a while to get back into the swing of that. Once I’d turned out a few postable photos and tried to upload them to the photo blog’s gallery, I discovered that this laptop is not compatible with the software I was using in conjunction with the gallery. I’d gotten this laptop as a replacement for my desktop (and a desktop as well) as it had begun to crash and burn from letting people use it who did Bob knows what and infecting it with viruses. That desktop is now repaired, but when I tried to load up the software the other day, the latest version of it (previous version having been lost upon recovery) turns out to be completely different than the version I had, and I cannot make it work.
The problem with this computer is that it is running Vista rather than XP (the only problem I’ve really had with Vista so far), so the newer desktop won’t work either.
I was actually going to painstakingly upload photos pretty much individually during my downtime at work today, but guess what? Either the laptop or the gallery didn’t like that idea, and I haven’t even been able to do that.

So imagine my excitement when in the process of trying to figure out how to get some photos from here to the Gallery, I think I may have found a tool that assimilates the process I used to use to upload entire folders of photos at once (I often will take hundreds of photos at a single event, which is why anything that does anything less than whole folders is virtually useless for my purposes). It is only for XP, so now I have to wait until I get home to try it on the old desktop. I am literally drooling.

Not much else has happened in the last week or so – I was sick, now I am better. We got Hot Shots Golf, and I am now addicted.
The only thing of note is that in my continued stalking of real estate listings, I was very excited to find a house in what I think is our price range on Monday, that I would actually consider buying. Then, I found a house that I would actually make an offer on right this second if I were prepared to do such a thing. As we are not prepared because up until recently, there wasn’t a house in my neighborhood that was worth the asking price, we have begun making preparations. My predictions about the bubble bursting and prices dropping are coming true. We have a few hurdles to overcome, and I also (fortunately) realized that the best house I’ve seen at an affordable price in years is not exactly where I thought it was, thus making it far less desirable. This is good because it would have driven me nuts not being able to buy it. Now we are working on a plan which have a buying a house around Christmas. That is when all of our issues should be worked out, and between (hopefully) prices dropping further between now and then, and the fact that hardly anyone wants to buy a house at that time, I am hoping we will get the best possible deal on something that is at least as nice as what I saw the other day, but in a more perfect spot. For the first time in years, I have a little hope as far as this whole house buying thing goes.

This also makes me very sad.
I have been saying this all along, right along with what I expressed this mo(u)rning.

Srsly? Wtf? I was upset enough thinking about it on my own, but reading that long list of references to the kind of bigotry Hillary has been the butt of actually made me cry. And we all know that I. DO. NOT. CRY.

This whole situation is such a giant pile of stinking bullshit that I wish I could go live on a another fucking planet. How are we so fucking ass backwards that we can’t even have a woman nominee, much less leader?

All I know is that this country, on an individual level, is largely run by women. Almost each and every household out there, no matter how free thinking and filled with equality, is primarily run by the woman of the house. Yes, the business world is still dominated by men. But what would men do without us?

I am trying to make it very well known that I think the world of my boyfriend. But I really do think he would readily admit that it is getting harder and harder for him to live without me. He fell asleep on the couch last night – early. Who roused him to go to bed for real, so his back didn’t hurt when he got up? Who did he ask where his phone was? Who told him it was plugged in and charging  and that his alarm was set? No, I don’t do everything around here. But I sure am the most prepared. You can bet your ass that I spend a lot more time working out alternate plan after alternate plan for the future. Not to mention multiple plans for what to do when this whole country goes plummeting down the toilet like a giant fucking turd.

On a personal level, it’s cold and I have a cold. We’re coming into mid-May here, and it should be 60-65, not 45-55. I found myself FANTASIZING last night about summer pajamas. I like to come home and jump right into my pjs, especially since I’ve been working until 6pm, rather than 3. I have a couple of pairs that are light and airy, as opposed to warm and fuzzy, that are paired with tank tops rather than sweaters. I’m not looking forward to sweat running down my legs while I’m working, but if I am looking forward to lazing around in the heat after work in my summer pawhammas (that’s what we really call pajamas ’round here), something is amiss.

And this whole thing with having a cold is bullshit. This is what I get for taking care of myself? For eating right, or at all even? For getting plenty of sleep, rather than being up all night? For cutting waaaaaay back on drinking? I mean, REALLY. This blows.

But the biggest disappointment is this fucking election bullshit. After the last one, I did not think it was possible for me to be THIS SICK of another election. I can now see why people abandon the Democratic party and flee for Green or Indie. What’s with all the infighting? What is with our stupid, stupid election process where we can only put on Republican and one Dem on the ballot, anyway? And after last time, when I shouted to the mountaintops “Vote, Vote, Vote!” along with so many others – and it worked, and young people and all kinds of people came out in record numbers to vote! – only to find out that our votes didn’t really matter anyway….It makes me sad.

It makes me even sadder that everyone is telling Hillary to give up. We really have to resort to being quitters to win this? I will vote for Obama, but I am really disappointed that I will very likely not have a chance to vote for Hillary. I really, really thought she had it in her to do a good job. Now that everything has turned so ugly, people are saying she’s corrupt, evil, a backstabber, but I really felt like she was just fighting hard because she really is worried about what will happen in the end.

I like Obama too, I really do, but…he’s kind of like a rockstar candidate to me. He looks good, sounds good, etc., but does he really have what it takes to make it through the long haul? Or is he just a one hit wonder? Will he be the Amy Winehouse of the political world? Damn, he’s good, he’s great and then….oh no, cracks under pressure.

It is fucking awesome that we have someone other than a white man running for President, but at the risk of sounding very un-PC (how shocking for me) I don’t know that Obama feels the black man’s pain. I mean, he is half white, after all. Not to mention, well educated. Has he ever had a hard time getting a job because he didn’t go to college, or because of how he looks? Has he ever had people yell racial slurs at him as he walked down the street? I doubt it. I doubt he walks down streets where that kind of thing happens, and in his sharp suit, he really doesn’t look like a black man.

To me, the fact remains also that, while Obama may be a (half) black man, he is still…. a MAN.

Everything else aside, I think I am really sad that when election time comes around again, I will have my choice of….two MEN. i have nothing against men. I love men. I have far more male friends than female. But we are coming into a time when things are in flux for women. We are all in the same boat when it comes to the economy, the war, health care….but women are always in a much more tenuous spot than men. Because we will ALWAYS have to fight for our reproductive rights. Don’t get me wrong – if they outlaw abortion and the pill, I will get an IUD or even a tubal to avoid having another child. Not because I have anything against children, but who wants to raise more kids in THIS world? I certainly don’t NEED to have another one when we’ve got those FLDS nutjobs with 35 kids. And even though I am still physically capable of bearing children, I am too old to have more. I can’t AFFORD to have more.

Is Obama really going to protect my rights? Or will he be just another one of the guys and get sucked into the machine of making friends with CEOs of big corps. and sneaking around like a dirty dog in the night?

Zillow finally updated on my old house. It shows last sold on 3/21/08 (the day before my birthday) for $550k.
Someone made an offer for a full $15k below the last reduction on the asking price, and they took it.
That’s $50k below what they were trying to sell it for, and $30k less than what they tried to sell it to me for.
I wonder what other concessions they had to make to sell it?

They could have offered it to me for $537k and gotten rid of it right away, and would have come out the same in the end, what with the price reduction and amount of money lost on having it sit empty for months.
That’s right, they had to pay about $13k in mortgage, not having me in there paying rent.
I don’t feel so bad about not getting my whole deposit back now. I still win. Thanks Karma.